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Re: Anyone remember the 1977 season?

Originally Posted by AirFlacco

Somebody said they were too old for this forum, I'm the oldest and been going to Colts games since the 50s as a little tot. I remember the Packers coming in before Lombardi. I remember talking to my friends in the back yard saying we never win anything in Bmore. That was in 58 when Bmore won their first championship ever.
I didn't understand the Xs and Os but knew the main objectives of the game.

As far as goal posts, a neighbor had one sticking up in his back yard in Govans. That was in 1960 during a game with the Lions.

Colts were going for their 3rd straight championhip but played a game in Chicago. We won but they beat us up so bad they knocked us out of the PO pic, just like Ravens did to Pissburgh just now. They won but haven't won a game since after Ravens beat them up-lol.

Anyway, Colts just had to win 1 of 4 games in 1960. The last game was vs Lions and a journeyman QB named Earl Morrall, later of SB 3 and SB 5 fame with the Colts.

Unitas brought the team back with an incredible last min patented TD and the place went nuts. Everyone stormed on the field and it took about 30 mins for the cops to clear the field. Can you see that happening today-lol.

There was enough time for the kickoff and 1 play.
Morrall got the ball and threw a short pass and the receiver ran 80 yds for the TD and win and that was the beginning of a bad decade for the Colts culminating with SB 3 with 1965 in between and Matte as the instant QB. We finished tied with GB with a 10-1-1 record with Matte as the QB. There was a game in GB won by them on a phony FG. Even their kicked kicked the dirt knowing he missed. Then he heard the crowds yelling and saw the refs calling it good.

The Colts protested the kick but to no avail of course. John Steadman had a pic of the kick and was going to publish it in the old News American. The Commish, Pete Rozelle asked him not to. Thirty years later he put the pic in his book FROM COLTS TO RAVENS and there it was a good 10 ft wide but Refs called it good.

Back to the Morrall TD, there were still fans on top of the goal posts pulling them down and there were still fans on the field.

I as one of them with my dad and uncles and one of those posts ended up down the alley-lol.

Oh!!! I remember that GB game in Green Bay. Kick was so NOT GOOD! I couldn't read the paper for weeks after that loss. It was such a terrible call by I think the ref was Jim Tunney or something like that. Just the first of many bad feelings I have had with the NFL that won't go away.

Re: Anyone remember the 1977 season?

Great thread. My memory of the colts between 1977-1984 were limited to highlights and newspaper articles. Then once the 80s arrived so did the losses. The only personal connection I had to the Colts was having Joe Washington as my neighbor but briefly though. I actually rooted for the cowboys during this time and continued to do so until the Ravens arrived.

Re: Anyone remember the 1977 season?

Pre-internet and pre-ESPN/NFLN.. you had to rely on your scratchy AM radio and Chuck Thompson to have any clue what was going on at Memorial Stadium.

I seem to recall we finally got on TV at home when the Steelers played here in '83.. Oddly enough we were 6-4 or something like that and in the playoff hunt. Full house here by we lost by 10 or so.. And that was the last time the Baltimore Colts played to a full house at home.

Re: Anyone remember the 1977 season?

Originally Posted by AirFlacco

Unitas brought the team back with an incredible last min patented TD and the place went nuts. Everyone stormed on the field and it took about 30 mins for the cops to clear the field. Can you see that happening today-lol.

There was enough time for the kickoff and 1 play.
Morrall got the ball and threw a short pass and the receiver ran 80 yds for the TD and win

I read about that game not long ago as that was the last TD thrown by Unitas on his 47 game streak.

Re: Anyone remember the 1977 season?

Originally Posted by Ravenboy2003

Pre-internet and pre-ESPN/NFLN.. you had to rely on your scratchy AM radio and Chuck Thompson to have any clue what was going on at Memorial Stadium.

Or go the the games. Tickets were plentiful. IIRC, we had only 4 sellouts per season during the height of Bert Jones era success with three straight division titles. We had upper deck 40 yard line seats for $10/game, but even then we had to buy exhibition tickets. I groused at the true cost being $12/game! (CPI has't come close to rate of increase for comparable Ravens season tix).

In a 2003 BBC poll that asked Brits to name the "Greatest American Ever", Mr. T came in fourth, behind ML King (3rd), Abe Lincoln (2nd) and Homer Simpson (1st).

Re: Anyone remember the 1977 season?

Originally Posted by Mista T

Or go the the games. Tickets were plentiful. IIRC, we had only 4 sellouts per season during the height of Bert Jones era success with three straight division titles. We had upper deck 40 yard line seats for $10/game, but even then we had to buy exhibition tickets. I groused at the true cost being $12/game! (CPI has't come close to rate of increase for comparable Ravens season tix).

Oh we went to a lot of games.. Dad's best friend owned a restaurant in Elkton and had 4 season tickets in Lower 34. I think the face value of those was $18.

I remember the '82 strike year when the season finally resumed, I think the last game of the season was on New Years Day against the Dolphins. MAYBE 10,000 showed up for that one. You could hear conversations people were having 3 sections over. That and most of the people in the stands spent the whole day getting drunk and screaming obscenities at Frank Kush.

Re: Anyone remember the 1977 season?

Originally Posted by Mista T

Or go the the games. Tickets were plentiful. IIRC, we had only 4 sellouts per season during the height of Bert Jones era success with three straight division titles. We had upper deck 40 yard line seats for $10/game, but even then we had to buy exhibition tickets. I groused at the true cost being $12/game! (CPI has't come close to rate of increase for comparable Ravens season tix).

Fans were sick and tired of Irsay's actions and the product on the field started really going down when Bert Jones had permanent damage to his throwing shoulder. OH what if Bert Jones hadn't been injured in a preseason ( I think) game against Detroit.

Re: Anyone remember the 1977 season?

Originally Posted by Mista T

Or go the the games. Tickets were plentiful. IIRC, we had only 4 sellouts per season during the height of Bert Jones era success with three straight division titles. We had upper deck 40 yard line seats for $10/game, but even then we had to buy exhibition tickets. I groused at the true cost being $12/game! (CPI has't come close to rate of increase for comparable Ravens season tix).

Yea, that's right.

As I recall our last season ticket package was like
$140. Today guys are paying more than their mortgages for PSLs-lol.

You could get a coke and hot dog for 25 cents.
What's a beer today - $8 lol.d

Joe Thomas screwed the fans by adding the pre-season tickets to the regular season ticket packages. In the past most Colts fans never went to pre-season games. Seems we were the only fans in the country that knew the games were phony-lol.

So Thomas made them mandatory and a lot of old fans dropped their tickets including original season ticket holders.

In order to bring the team back, Bert Bell the Comish demanded something like 15,000 pre-sold season tickets. We had a team and they moved and were trying to get them back.

The city sold those tickets fast and we got the
old Dallas Texans. Bell then appointed Carroll Rosenbloom as the owner. He only had to put up a few thousand of his own money or something like that. He set $1M cash aside and said he would sell out when the money ran out. It never ran out. Years later he said I made more money in pro football than anywhere else.

When he sold the Colts to Irsay for $19M, Irsay quoted him as saying the team would be worth
$100,000 in a decade. Today the Colts are worth
$1B. It's Jimmy's only job, the only one he ever had.

I knew games were fixed during the 58 Championship game in sudden death. Unitas was driving for the game winning TD and was in field goal range to win it but Rosey was on the sideline
demanding that he go for the TD.

You see, Rosey gambled a lot on that game and he needed the TD to cover the point spread and he got it and the players got extra cash in envelopes under their doors. That's in Steadman's book.

When Rosey died swimming off his Florida beach front estate, Arty Donovan called Unitas and said mafia frogmen just killed Rosey.

Rosey owed Vegas millions. There was foul play called and even his wife Georgia was a suspect or questioned. No evidence of foul play was found and Georgia re-married before his body was cold.

She died not too long ago and her children recently sold the team. Remember when Rush Limbaugh tried to buy it and the players revolted-lol.

Re: Anyone remember the 1977 season?

Originally Posted by AirFlacco

Somebody said they were too old for this forum, I'm the oldest and been going to Colts games since the 50s as a little tot. I remember the Packers coming in before Lombardi. I remember talking to my friends in the back yard saying we never win anything in Bmore. That was in 58 when Bmore won their first championship ever.
I didn't understand the Xs and Os but knew the main objectives of the game.

As far as goal posts, a neighbor had one sticking up in his back yard in Govans. That was in 1960 during a game with the Lions.

Colts were going for their 3rd straight championhip but played a game in Chicago. We won but they beat us up so bad they knocked us out of the PO pic, just like Ravens did to Pissburgh just now. They won but haven't won a game since after Ravens beat them up-lol.

Anyway, Colts just had to win 1 of 4 games in 1960. The last game was vs Lions and a journeyman QB named Earl Morrall, later of SB 3 and SB 5 fame with the Colts.

Unitas brought the team back with an incredible last min patented TD and the place went nuts. Everyone stormed on the field and it took about 30 mins for the cops to clear the field. Can you see that happening today-lol.

There was enough time for the kickoff and 1 play.
Morrall got the ball and threw a short pass and the receiver ran 80 yds for the TD and win and that was the beginning of a bad decade for the Colts culminating with SB 3 with 1965 in between and Matte as the instant QB. We finished tied with GB with a 10-1-1 record with Matte as the QB. There was a game in GB won by them on a phony FG. Even their kicked kicked the dirt knowing he missed. Then he heard the crowds yelling and saw the refs calling it good.

The Colts protested the kick but to no avail of course. John Steadman had a pic of the kick and was going to publish it in the old News American. The Commish, Pete Rozelle asked him not to. Thirty years later he put the pic in his book FROM COLTS TO RAVENS and there it was a good 10 ft wide but Refs called it good.

Back to the Morrall TD, there were still fans on top of the goal posts pulling them down and there were still fans on the field.

I as one of them with my dad and uncles and one of those posts ended up down the alley-lol.

Yep, dont bring up that play. That haunts my family for years the Morrall play.